What Does Luke 3:38 Mean?
Who was the son of Enos, who was the son of Seth, who was the son of Adam, who was the son of God.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.THE KEY
The final “of God” makes the human line reach beyond parentage to its named source.
THE MEANING
Your human story is not presented as self-originating: the line reaches Adam and names God as his source. Human ancestry and relation to God stand in one chain of belonging.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that human life is cut off from its source after human parentage is unsettled here: the genealogy’s last link names God.
THE ROOT
θεοῦ
theou
GROWS FROM
θεός
The Greek lexical form naming God; the verse uses its genitive form, meaning “of God.”
The Greek line ends with God as the final link, while the KJV supplies “son” to make the repeated relationship explicit. The chain reaches beyond human ancestry and names God as Adam’s source.
ALSO GROWS
theotēs: Deity, divine nature
θεότης
This related form names divine nature, extending the word family from God as a person to what is divine.
theologia: Discourse about God; theology
θεολογία
This compound retains the same God-word and shows how the name at the genealogy’s endpoint becomes the subject of speech and thought.
אָדָם
adam
GROWS FROM
אדם
The consonants name the human and echo the word for ground.
Luke’s Greek form is Ἀδάμ (Adám, Adam), carried from Hebrew אָדָם (adam, human). Its consonants also run through אֲדָמָה (adamah, ground), keeping earth within the meaning of the first human’s name.
ALSO GROWS
adamah: Ground, soil
אֲדָמָה
The shared consonants link the human to the ground; Genesis 2:7 makes that connection explicit.
adam: Human, humankind
אָדָם
The name also carries the common word for human, placing Adam within humanity rather than outside it.
THE PATTERN
Scripture places human life within a relation of origin and dependence that reaches God.
And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.But now, LORD, you are our father. We are the clay, and you our potter, and all of us are the work of your hand.For in him we live and move and are; as some of your own makers have said, for we are also his offspring.THE THREAD
And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.The Hebrew name אָדָם (adam, human) sounds beside אֲדָמָה (adamah, ground), and Genesis 2:7 makes that association bodily: the human is formed from the ground. Luke’s genealogy therefore holds an earth-shaped humanity within a line that reaches God.
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